dapqam

I have an 06 RL with 106K miles. I have heard from a dealer that some get 200K miles out of struts / dampers. Please let me hear from you all about how many miles you have driven before needing to replace the struts / dampers. Or how many miles you have on them now? also, what is the expected life of the struts / dampers? Thank for your input!

oo7spy

The life will depend heavily on the roads driven and the style of driving. How often are you going up and down? How often are the struts being fully extended or slammed down? Also, some RLs here have experienced blown struts after the car was put on a lift, and the age of the struts under stress will play a role too.

I didn't get a chance to change mine b/c I killed the car too early. However, on Legend #1, I had a blown rear strut at ~150k miles and 13 years old. Honestly though, the struts should have been changed before I bought it at 114k miles and 8 years old. The car rode well, but I bottomed out often. I attributed that to the height of the car until I changed all 4 struts and never bottomed out again.

Struts are a wear and tear item that are sort of hard to judge. The biggest issue is that the decrease in performance is so slight, that you don't notice the difference. As they wear out over 100k miles and 7 years, you get used to how they change. It isn't until they are changed that you can tell the night and day difference. I would suggest changing the struts on a heavy luxury cruiser like the RL every 100-120k miles. The car is designed for comfort, and it is a heavy pig.